Alternatives to dry-mounting to retain flatness

[darter]

With all the discussion about dry-mounting, what other options are useful to maintain the flatness of a print. I have no problem creating a flat print, but over time it tends to ripple despite being kept in a temperature controlled environment and between heavy mattboard. Is it best, for example to tape all the corners under tension? Or is there some other means available?

[photographs42]

Most paper art is attached to a backing board with two hinges at the top only. Using archival tape, you attach a short piece to the art from the back and let it extend above the edge of the paper about an inch. Then you attach the to the backing by taping across the extended end of the two pieces of tape. The idea is to allow the paper to expand and contract without buckling as temperature and humidity changes. I have never done this with photographs but have with about every other type of paper art.

Jerome

[David A. Goldfarb]

I also hinge mount usually. If you leave enough of a margin and overmat, you can keep the wrinkles out of the image area.

Starch mounting is another possibility. There is a good description of how to do this in an archivally acceptible way in Reilly's book on albumen printing at albumen.stanford.edu.

[Doug Howk]

My drymount press is 12X15 so anything larger has to be done in sections. But that gave less than satisfactory results. So for regular prints of larger size I've switched to Crescent acid-free PerfectMount self-adhesive mounting board.

[JW Dewdney]

This was one of the original purpose of having mattes - provided the paper the image is on is significantly bigger than the image itself - it should work.